GB ARTS

The lake were the second album rleased by the band from 2000 and aswell their swansong, they disbanding in 2002 and gone into oblivion. Well, this another worthy album, is little more proggresive then their first one, the power metal elements are sporadicaly integrated in the music, the result being a little more intresting and elaborated as on Return to forever.. Very nice vocal parts, a very good singer this Achim Reichert , has a powerful and yet melodic voice and is more then ok into this type of music.Some very fine moments here like on Silver Rain, The surface, in fact all pieces are ok, no boring moments for me here. Very strong tempo changes, good musicinaship, nice choruses,all in all a solid album for me. Again 3.5 stars, great unnoticed band.

GB Arts is one of the totaly unknown and forgotten progressive metal band coming from Germany. They were active in the the '90 and early 2000 untill they disbanded in 2002. They released two albums, as their web page indicated, in other places appear they had 3 albums with first issued in 1994. Anyway Return to forever from 1998 is a good album from prog metal zone with a good doze of power metal elements added in the mix. I like that the band concentrated more on song writting and not only on skills of the musicians, who are btw quite high, specially the guitarist is awesome. Very nice keyboards on some pieces like on Behind the mirror. The ending track Parade Of The Innocence is a very nice and solid prog metal tune with 12 min of greatness. I think they are apart from the army of bands who invaded the scene with this sound in alte '90, with great hooks, nice arrangements, lots of excellent musicianship and quite great ideas overall. OK, now this is not a masterpieces for sure, but has enough moments to be appreciated by any prog metal fan. The voice of Achim Reichert is great, fiting perfectly in the mood of the album. The instrumental parts are quite strong, as on title track , or on opening track , very nice shift from edgy parts to more mellow ones. GB Arts is clearly influenced by bands from power metal school from the early '90 from Germany but combined with progressive elements make from this album a nice and enjoyble listning. 3.5 stars for sure.